Sunday, April 13, 2008

New colors and stained glass finds...

We tried some more combinations of backsplash colors and the order in which we layered them. And if everything still looks good in the evening light, we've found one we're going with. Basically, we rubbed the panel with 00 steel wool, quickly, then primed with Rustoleum primer for heavily rusted metal. The heavy duty stuff. It's a very reddish brown. Then I painted the Sophisticated Finishes blackened bronze on the panel, 2 squares at a time with a sponge brush. After that, I daubed and patted at the wet paint with a dry sponge brush-- a wet brush causes a ton of bubbles., and it dries very quickly; 2 squares was all I could do at once. After those layers dried, we sprayed the Krylon outdoor formula copper paint as a brief passing mist...just enough for some copper sheen.

A picture wouldn't do any good-- it doesn't look much different in pics than the panel I photographed last night, and you can take my word for it that it looks even less like a choco bar and more like an oil rubbed bronze. We also tried our paint technique on the connector pieces that Home Depot sells for their plastic ceiling panels. The finish looked good; we'll know more about how well they work when we install the backsplash.

I know this is a bit of a laundry list of "accomplishments." I feel a little better about the hole in the ceiling knowing that something else is getting better.

So continuing...

We affixed our under cabinet lighting. Sam's Club sells 3 packs of these Sylvania Dragon Cabinet lights. They are like Sylvania's more colorful Dot-Its, but they're a step up, I think.

They are LED lights with stickum on the back. They are battery powered, have a motion sensor and 2 settings-- bright and dim. At $28 for 3, it's a pretty solid deal. We like them so far.

This week is also our city spring clean-up. There are dumpsters located in each city ward, and we made 2 runs, getting rid of the nasty carpet and old mattresses. This couldn't have been better timed, what with the hail storm on Wednesday night.

We also did some temporary repair work on my grandmother's windows, and while we were there, we went through some more of the stuff that no one else wanted or needed. We picked up some good measuring cups, a marble rolling pin, mixing bowls, a silver butter dish, meat grinder, good liquor, etc. But we also got some cooler and more sentimental items. One was an old sewing machine that was my great grandmother's and which I played on for hours and hours; I would lay on the floor and kick the fly wheel until someone came and made me stop. 2 fabulous peach FireKing Lustreware custard dishes-- great for ice cream!

Another FireKing, milk glass oven ware serving dish on the left and the bread basket we used every family dinner; it has a slate panel in the bottom that goes in the oven while you bake and sits in the bottom of the tray to keep the bread warm during dinner:

And this one was a real surprise. In the back on a high cabinet, I found this coffee carafe and cups:

It's Franciscan Pottery from the mid-thirties, I think. It's really, really cool. I've never seen in at the house, but I've fallen in love with it. I'm guessing that my grandmother may have picked it up when she traveled on the train out to California before she joined the Navy and met my grandfather. She didn't do a lot of traveling after that, so I think this is really something special.

And finally, the thing I'm probably most excited about, is the stained glass that my grandfather made, and which hung in their kitchen for years.

The window directly beside this one has a gigantic window unit. We'll replace that with plate glass and we can hang this panel in front-- it fits perfectly. And that is the most exciting thing.

Jennifer-- I'm not sure how long they last. They take 3 AAA batteries (comes with them) and they are 30 times brighter than regular Dot-Its. The regular ones claim 100 hours of continuous light, if that means anything. These that we bought have a 60 minute auto shut-off so as not to waste energy.

They also separate from the base to make changing batteries a whole lot easier. I imagine this will be the time to invest in some rechargeables!! We can always remove or add lights if we change the wiring under there or decide we need more light. With our concrete wall behind the cabinets, these were the easiest solution.

Don't expect flood lighting-- but they do sort of keep the counter from being a black hole. We may add one or two once we get a feel for how we like them. We've put some in the pantry, too, and it's great to be able to see what we're looking for!

What awesome kitchen items you have acquired!! We live near several antique stores/flea markety kinda places and I can never get enough of that stuff...just ask Stan on that one. I imagine once we go through our boxes and we are out with the new and in with the old it won't look quite so overwhleming in the kitchen (but I've always had an overactive imagination).

And the window, how lucky are you to have such a beautiful handmade item in the family. I find many beautiful stained glass windows that because of size just won't work.

We spent the weekdend away so I didn't read about the backsplash until today. We are ridding ourselves of our hideous dark kitchen cabinets and are going to only have an island and some baker's racks. Your backsplash would work out perfectly for the base of our island. Hopefully we can achieve a not so shiny finish in 10 steps or less!